Pumpkins and Anthropology
by maravelous
Summary: Oneshot;AU; "I think humans are more beautiful than any story or picture ever made." — ShikaTema & NejiTen; For BR


Shikamaru had climbed out of many windows in his lifetime.

The first time, it was to avoid his mother after he broke her favorite picture frame when he was seven. Another time, he was twelve, and he was crawling out of a classroom to get out of a particularly brutal detention sentence. And many more after that.

And today, at twenty two years of age, he was going to do it again.

The thought — that being he was a fully grown man and still committing acts so childish — _did_ cross his mind, as he walked through his bedroom in the tiny apartment he owned with his best friend Chouji. But as he pushed the thick blinds aside and squinted out the window at the autumn sunlight that glared into his dusty room, he found himself unable to care.

This was far too important an escape to waste worrying about how old he was.

At the same moment that he was yanking open the window, he heard the front door just outside his bedroom creaking open, and the two familiar voices of his roommate, Chouji, and his good friend, Ino, mumbling something. Shikamaru paused, and strained his ears to listen:

"I really don't think he's here, Ino." Shikamaru's skin prickled slightly as the knob of the bedroom door jiggled, and Chouji's deep voice continued: "Look, he's locked his door. He must've gone out."

"Then why is his car parked in the lot?" Shikamaru winced; as usual, Ino Yamanaka's voice was shrill and impatient. He clamped a hand over his left ear and hid the other one in his shoulder as suddenly she yelled, "Shikamaru! Come on, stop being a baby and come out! Chouji and I need to talk to you!"

"Ino, come on," Chouji's gentle voice, quieter and more patient, was a relief. "You know him, he loves going out on long walks. He's probably just sitting in a park somewhere smoking a cigarette and contemplating death, or whatever he thinks about."

Shikamaru almost laughed at that, and listened some more as Ino grumbled, "I don't think he would leave just for leisure. He left because he knew we'd be looking for him here. It's just so like him to hide away from all his troubles."

"Then we may as well check the park."

"No, I want to stick around. We can wait for him to get back." Shikamaru heard the thumping of their footsteps retreating into the kitchen, and he frowned. Suddenly, he found himself torn between the strong desire to leap out the window and take a nice walk in the cool autumn breeze, and the sickening urge to listen to what he knew he didn't really want to hear.

The sound of the refrigerator opening and closing, some clinking of glasses, the murmuring of their voices; Shikamaru could pick out what they were saying if he calmed his breath and strained his ears. Chouji was talking now: "No, really, I haven't gotten the chance to even hint it to him yet. He's been avoiding me like the plague. And I think it's because he already knows, he just doesn't want to hear it."

"It's so childish of him," Ino said with a sigh. "It's not like we want to hurt his feelings. It's not like we're not going to spend time with him anymore. It's not like it changes anything."

"Well, it does change _some_ things…" Chouji disagreed calmly, speaking over the sound of a liquid being poured into the glasses.

There was a pause, and Ino's curious voice said suddenly, "Wine? Really?"

Chouji coughed, sounding a little embarrassed, but said with a small laugh, "What, you were expecting me to get you a beer or something?"

"Well that's usually what we drink when we have alcohol," Ino said churlishly, a teasing tone to her voice.

"Well maybe I wanted to get you something a little more romantic," Chouji defended himself. "Ever think of that?"

"I did think of that."

"And?"

There was a silence, and Shikamaru knew what it meant. And he didn't want to stick around to confirm it. He turned, pushed the window pane as far up as he could, and quietly stuck a leg out, then another. He looked down at the sidewalk about three feet below him, not a terrible jump. Grasping the window's ledge, he queried for a second over the fact that this was much easier when he was a kid, but ignored the small pain in his neck as he bent his head low, and pushed his body out of the window.

As he half crouched, half hung off the ledge, he twisted around and peered into his bedroom, gazing at the door. He allowed himself a few seconds to watch it in silence, almost waiting to hear Ino or Chouji say something, anything. Then he rolled his eyes, and let himself drop.

He was expecting a bit of pain, of course. You don't drop three feet onto pure cement and feel like you've fallen into an ocean of pillow cases.

But he wasn't expecting _so much_ pain. Something sharp and metal jabbed him in the upper arm, something hard and dull knocked the wind out of his stomach, something cold cut his skin, and a loud, "What the _hell_?" snapped sharply in his ear, as he tumbled onto the sidewalk and coughed.

After lying in a sprawled position on the ground for a few seconds, he shook his head to clear his mind, bewildered, and then turned his suddenly very sore neck to see what he'd fallen on.

A beautiful young woman, about his age, although probably a few years older by the way she held herself, was standing on the sidewalk, staring down at him with a mixture of confusion and anger. On the ground, smashed and mangled, was a camera. It had been on a stand, which was now bent, and the lens had cracked, littering the cement with broken glass. As he saw this, Shikamaru lifted up his right fore-arm, to see that a piece of it was stuck in his skin.

He grimaced at the blood that oozed from the wound, and made sure his first reaction was to pull it out.

But a warm hand stopped him. He blinked and looked up, and the woman's dark, green-blue eyes were glaring at him. "What are you doing?" she snapped in a low voice, pulling blonde hair the color of a lion's mane out of her face. "Are you an idiot?"

Shikamaru, although aware the situation was not appropriate, laughed. "I'm actually rather smart."

"Well would you look at that," the woman spat dryly. "A rather smart person who does rather stupid things."

Shikamaru exhaled meekly. "That about sums it up." He moved yet again to pull the glass from his arm, because the damned thing was starting to create a dull pounding pain, but the woman's hand stopped him yet again.

"Don't do that," she said. He looked up at her in confusion, and she waved a hand at the arm impatiently. "You'll expose the wound to a lot of infections if you pull it out like that. You need medication before you have an open wound. Leave it in 'till you get ointment."

Shikamaru raised a brow. "Are you a medical doctor?"

"No. I'm a photographer." She gestured to the broken camera on the ground with disdain.

Shikamaru nodded slowly. "Well, then I'll listen to you when I see your medical degree."

Ignoring her frustrated little _"Tuh!"_ of disapproval, he shook her hand off and pulled the glass from his arm. It was the size of the pad of his forefinger, and it had been embedded deeper in his skin than he thought it was. He and the woman both watched for a few seconds in disgusted interest as the bloody piece of glass clattered onto the sidewalk, and red seeped from the open wound in his arm.

"That was a little worse than I thought it would be," Shikamaru admitted.

"I'm assuming you've injured your head as well in the fall," the woman replied sourly. She didn't assist him as Shikamaru clambered to his feet, ignoring her insult, and looked around. As he brushed dirt off of his clothes and gingerly tapped at the wound in his arm, the woman crossed over to the destroyed piece of equipment on the ground. "What a day," she muttered, and he turned to watch as she pulled at one of the legs of the stand the camera had been set up on. "The moment I set down my new camera, and it's destroyed as soon as I take a step back from it."

Shikamaru found a small twang of guilt pulling at his stomach, but all he could say was, "I didn't see it."

"Obviously." The woman straightened up and put her hands on her hips. Shikamaru allowed himself to glance over her form, a tall and shapely body covered in a purple dress and a dark violet, wool coat. Her dirty blonde hair was up in a sloppy bun, tendrils of spiky bangs falling down to frame a heart-shaped face featuring a turned-up nose, crimson lips, and those dangerous teal eyes. She was a beauty, and he felt himself growing more and more guilt-wracked the more he became fond of her appearance.

But unable to apologize, as it wasn't in his nature, he simply asked her, "Aren't you angry…?"

The woman looked at him, and he had to stop himself from shying away from those sharp eyes. "Why?" she asked simply.

"Because I broke your camera."

"Aren't _you_ angry? I broke your skin." Shikamaru paused to think about that, and she continued: "You said it yourself; you didn't see it. If I were angry at you for making a mistake that was out of your control, I would be a hypocrite."

Shikamaru nodded slowly; she had a good point. But he was still upset with himself for being so distracted by Ino and Chouji that he didn't see a camera being set up beneath him. Remembering this, he looked up at the window he'd fallen from, and the woman, noticing, did as well.

"May I ask you something?"

"Why was I jumping out of a window?" Shikamaru guessed.

The woman pursed her lips. "If it was a suicide attempt, it was a very poor one."

"It wasn't a suicide attempt."

"Then it was…?"

"An escape."

"From what, a marauder?"

Shikamaru turned around. The woman was gazing at him intensely, so intensely he felt his body, which had before been chilled by the cool autumn air, turn warm. The sun sent rays of golden light through her hair and over her shoulders and into his eyes. He watched her. She watched him. Finally, with one last look to the window, he said carefully, "Can you talk with me?"

The woman gazed at him for a moment, and he felt like he was under a microscope while he was the object of her speculation. Until finally, she looked at her destroyed camera. "Well, my plans for the day have been ruined, and I have nothing better to do." She turned back to him and shrugged. "So, sure."

＊

**Pumpkins and Anthropology**

By Mara, November 2012

＊

"Neji Hyuuga, for the last time, come out of the closet!" Tenten cried.

From the other side of the thick oak door, there came nothing but silence. Tenten groaned and slapped her palm weakly against the wood. "You are being so childish!" She paused, then smirked and said loudly, "Neji, we are never having sex again!"

Still silence.

She glared heartily at the door and growled, "What kind of a man are you?"

"That was a lie, and you know it."

Finally she heard the sound of his voice, deep and slow, on the other side of the door. She rolled her eyes. "How do you know? I could be telling the truth. Women can boycott sex all they want."

"And men can't?"

"Men can't do anything right," Tenten said, giving herself a small amount of satisfaction at her own personal truth.

"And what makes that apparent?"

"Well _your_ actions, for one!" She pounded on the door once more and shouted, "Now get _out_!"

"Would you stop _yelling_? It's absolutely ridiculous. I mean, really, you think _I'm_ being childish?"

"You don't seem to hear me unless I yell," Tenten defended herself furiously, not wanting to admit that she was only yelling for sake of her own incredulous anger. "Come on, _please_ come out. We need you!"

"You don't need me, there is honestly nothing I can do."

"You could _assist_ us, Neji!"

"In what, holding him back?"

"You can't hide in there forever."

"No, I can't. But I _can_ hide 'till he's sobered up."

"So you admit you're hiding, then!" Tenten waited, and heard nothing. She sighed. "I can't believe I've been dating you for two years and haven't broken up with you yet."

"Are you going to break up with me?"

"No."

"Then what are you complaining about?"

Tenten glowered. "You think you're _so_ smart."

"Because I am."

"No, you're not. You're a moron, a moron that doesn't want to help his friends." With no reply to that, Tenten turned around and leaned her back against the door, pushing her long, brown pigtails out of her face. The large bedroom the two shared was illuminated by the early day sun burning through the thin violet curtains, casting pale purple shadows about their queen-sized bed, onto the silky pillows and sheets, and sliding over the dirty laundry, Tenten's clothes thrown about, while Neji's were draped and folded gracefully over an expensive-looking arm chair.

Both of them seemed to take peace in the silence for a while, Tenten resting silently against the door and gazing sullenly about the room as if searching for ideas among their wardrobes and bookshelves and the soft carpet beneath her bare toes. That is, until the silence was broken by a loud screech coming from somewhere outside the bedroom door:

"BUT SAKURA, I _LOVE_ YOU!"

"For the last time, I'm not Sakura, you dunce! I'm Hiashi!

"BUT…BUT WHERE IS MY DARLING SAKURA?"

"Not here, now would you _get off my leg_?"

Tenten watched the door with wary eyes. Lee knew the rule not to go into Neji and Tenten's bedroom when he was visiting the flat, and she was sure Hiashi wouldn't dare enter either, even _if_ his nephew had taken off running into the bedroom closet at the first sight of the drunken Lee. So she was safe from them for now.

However, at the same time that she didn't want to go outside and be introduced to the mass chaos that she was sure to be faced with, she also didn't enjoy the knowledge that they were out there throwing their clumsy bodies around in the midst of all of she and Neji's expensive things.

Seeming to have the same mindset as she, Neji spoke from outside of the door, saying, "Would you please check on them?"

Tenten craned her neck to pout at the closet, although the action was unnecessary due to Neji's inability to see her. "No! Why don't _you_ go?"

"Why _should_ I?" Neji challenged right back.

"Because you're a coward hiding in the closet, and you could atone for that by doing something to solve this situation!" Tenten explained impatiently.

"I see no reason to. It was _your_ alcohol that Lee found in the first place. You _know_ better than to just stick a whole Smirnoff in the fridge, we have that locked refrigerator in the garage for a _reason_."

"Well I didn't know Lee was having trouble with Sakura, I didn't think he was in the mood to drink! I mean, it's not even noon yet, why would he _want_ to drink?"

"He wasn't supposed to be _over here_ in the first place! You _knew_ I was having my business meeting with my uncle today, and you just let Lee in when he knocked!"

"What was I supposed to do, Neji? He was _sobbing_! And at least you finally got to introduce him to your uncle."

"Right before he introduced _himself_ to an entire bottle of Raspberry Vodka."

"Do you really think I _intentionally_ made this happen? Do you really think I'm _enjoying_ myself?"

"I'm not sure at this point."

Tenten was about to yell another angry retort, but before she got the chance to, her cell phone sitting on her desk in a patch of sunlight began to vibrate. She cocked her head to the side and lifted herself from the door, crossing the bedroom to retrieve it.

"Who's calling?" Neji asked loudly from the closet door. Tenten ignored him and answered it. "Hello, Ino," she spoke into the phone.

"_Tenten, darling, I need your help."_

Tenten sighed and rested her buttocks on the desk, pushing her bangs from her face wearily. "Ino, I kind of have a lot going on at the moment…"

"_Well so do I, you don't see me complaining."_

"Actually, I'm anticipating it," Tenten disagreed numbly. "What, though, what is it?"

"_Okay, don't say anything, but if Shikamaru is over at your place, say no. If he isn't over there, say yes."_

Tenten raised a brow. "Is there a reason I must speak in codes…?"

"_Don't give it away!"_

"Who's calling?"

"Shut up, Neji."

"_Oh, are you and Neji having a fight?"_

"Something like that," Tenten grumbled. "Either way, Shikamaru isn't here, he hasn't been here all day. Why, did he run away? Did you neglect to feed him or groom him?"

Although obviously amused that Tenten was comparing him to a dog, Ino sounded angry in her response: _"Ugh…No, we don't know where he is. His car is in the lot in front of his and Chouji's apartment, but he's locked his bedroom door and there's no sound from there. And we'd know if he was sleeping because he'd let out one of his usual snores or chuckles in his slumber."_

Tenten cracked a grin at her frustrated joke. "Let me guess, you and Chouji are trying to tell him you're an item, and he just can't handle the news."

"_It seems so." _Tenten heard Ino let out a heavy sigh. _"This is just ridiculous. Oh well, if you see him, can you let us know?"_

"Will do."

"_So what do you have going on anyways? What are you and Neji fighting about?"_

"Well it's not me and Neji fighting that's the bad part. It's Lee."

There was a small silence, then: _"He got drunk again, did he?"_

Tenten grimaced. "…Yes…"

A pause.

"_Good luck, goodbye."_

Tenten glared at the phone as suddenly there was nothing but a buzz coming from the other line. Another coward. It seemed the world was full of them.

"Who was calling?"

"Shut up, Neji."

＊

Shikamaru was not one to do spontaneous things. He preferred life to include a guidebook, and since it didn't, he created a fake one in his head. Although it rarely went by the directions, he at least had a plan for everything that came his way, so he wasn't ever faced with a tremendous surprise.

So he very much shocked himself when he had so randomly asked this woman, whom he did not even know by name, to talk with him. As the two walked down the sidewalk outside the red brick apartments he belonged to, past the thin side streets with no traffic, the bordering peach trees that glowed orange and gold in the sun, lugging her destroyed camera equipment in their arms, he watched her carefully, though did not say a word.

Maybe it was because she was so beautiful. He knew he had a weakness for pretty girls, ever since he got his first boner after Middle School one day when Ino bent over and he could see up her skirt. Although these days, he felt like vomiting at the mere thought, she was so like a sister to him.

And Chouji, like a brother…

So for the two of them to…

No. No, Shikamaru didn't want to think about it. He turned his focus yet again to the woman striding next to him. She walked confidently, and quickly, matching his pace in an unnatural way. She didn't look at him, although he was sure she could sense his gaze. She simply had a demeanor about her that said, "I don't care, world, get out of my way," staring straight ahead with an intentional look.

But with her apparent notice of his stare, he quickly became uncomfortable. He wasn't accustomed to silence, after practically living with Ino all his life. So he broke it.

"Where did you park?" he asked, since she had mentioned before that they were going to put her broken camera in the trunk of her car before they did anything else.

"Another block up."

"Why did you park so far away?"

"I didn't intentionally. I was simply looking for a good spot to take a photo, and when I walked a few blocks, that particular spot where you fell happened to be it."

"Why was it good?"

"I doubt you'd understand. My turn."

Shikamaru raised a brow as she looked at him. "Your turn for what?"

"To ask the questions." The wind blew some bangs into her face, and she elegantly shook them away. "Why were you escaping out the window? What were you running from?"

"Well, it wasn't a marauder."

"Then what was it?"

"My best friends."

"Who are they?"

"Chouji and Ino."

"How long have you been friends?"

"All our life. You ask a lot of questions."

"You were asking a lot before. What's your name?" They had stopped by now, in front of a small black Saturn. The woman was retrieving a pair of keys from her pocket, and opening the trunk of it.

Shikamaru watched her as she dumped carelessly the broken camera into the belly of the trunk. He followed suit, relieved to have the heavy equipment released from his burden. She was watching him, hands on her hips, and he shrugged. "What's _your_ name?"

She stared at him, unblinking. "Why don't you want to tell me _yours_?"

"Why don't _you_?"

A silence passed as they watched each other, sizing each other up with their eyes. It took Shikamaru only a moment to realize that she was like him. He was aware of his own intelligence, it was what got him through college with top marks, it was what was getting him his degree soon, in less than a year. And she had the same level of it. The same hardness was in her features, the solitude of wisdom set her mouth in a straight, harsh line. She knew the world inside and out, and mirrored both its sadness and its joy. And now, face to face, these two intelligent beings were challenging each other with their wit.

He pondered who would back down first, but as he did so, she spoke again:

"So why were you running away from your friends?"

Shikamaru frowned, and thought about his answer while she slammed the trunk closed and faced him head on. "They…" he began slowly, "I think they're going to tell me something that I don't want to hear."

"And what would that be?" she asked, leaning against the car.

He awkwardly did the same, leaning against the trunk next to her, crossing his arms to shield himself against the cold. "I'm still deciding if I'm right or not…" he said finally.

"Okay, well answer me this." Shikamaru winced in surprise when suddenly she poked the wound in his arm. He had forgotten about the pain of it, and only then did he realize he was bleeding a little too much. "Why aren't you wearing a jacket?" the woman asked, eyes lingering on his tight black tee-shirt with short sleeves. "It's freezing out here."

Shikamaru put a hand to the wound to wipe away some of the blood, grimacing. "I wasn't thinking straight," he admitted honestly. "I saw Ino's car pulling up from the living room window, and I felt it was urgent to leave. I didn't even bring my cell phone…Or a pack of cigarettes…"

"You smoke?"

"Yeah."

The woman scoffed and shook her head at him like she was scolding a five year old. "Rather smart, my ass."

Shikamaru rolled his eyes. "I know, I know. I _am_ smart, though. It's just the things I _do_ that are really stupid."

The woman cocked her head to the side, observing his defeated demeanor. "Well," she said slowly, tone a little less harsh, "most people who smoke only do so for tradition. Isn't that the case with you?"

Shikamaru nodded. "Yeah. A man, sort of like my father figure, died a while ago. And he was the heaviest chain smoker I've ever seen. That's where I picked it up from." He smiled sadly. "To quit smoking would kind of be like quitting my memory of him."

"Well, maybe that's best, maybe that isn't," the woman said, watching him with those dark, scary eyes. "Either way, tobacco has been in this world since we first saw the light, and it isn't leaving."

"And it gets rid of my headaches, for one," Shikamaru continued. He looked at the woman, and asked cautiously, out of his own curiosity, "Do you smoke? Anything?"

She shrugged. "Marijuana, occasionally, especially when I'm going to take a photo shoot somewhere. I used to smoke cigarettes, but marijuana helped me quit."

"I love marijuana," Shikamaru announced with an understanding nod.

"It's pleasant," the woman agreed.

"Are you high right now?"

"No. Are you?"

"No, but I wouldn't be surprised if I actually was."

"What's your name?"

Shikamaru pursed his lips to the side, narrowing his eyes contemplatively at her. "Why do you want to know?"

"It's easier to talk to someone when I know their name. But perhaps it's not so for you." She drummed her fingers on the trunk of her car. "Then tell me what you're afraid this Chouji and Ino are trying to tell you."

Shikamaru inhaled and exhaled. He may as well. As long as he was being spontaneous, there was no reason to let himself stop now. "I'm afraid" he said, "that they're going to tell me they're….dating."

"Dating, or having sex? Or both?"

"Both, I think. In fact, I'm _sure_ it's both."

She shook her head at him, once again as if he was five years old and she was his babysitter. "Running away from your problems never solves anything."

"On the contrary, I've found running away from my problems to be favorably effective. It's why I've only been beaten up twice."

She didn't laugh, but he found a small twinkle in one of her hard eyes that he recognized to be a sense of humor. Good, so she wasn't _completely _invincible. "You've been beaten up twice?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Obviously, I'm a bit of a smart ass."

"Obviously," she agreed smugly.

He rolled his eyes. "Yes, and I tend to use my intelligence to my advantage, and people don't often appreciate it."

"As they shouldn't," the woman scoffed. "A higher amount of intelligence should include the ability to control oneself. I, for example, have this ability."

"Do you often use it?"

"Unfortunately, I'm forced to on a daily basis."

"So you admit you are confronted with idiots on a daily basis?"

"Obviously." She gestured to him, and he found himself unable to stop the little smile that came to his face.

"You're funny," he admitted, in spite of himself.

She didn't reply to this, only asked, "Why do you have a problem with your friends being an item? Shouldn't you be happy for them?"

He stuck his tongue in his cheek and gazed out at a blackbird that departed from one of the peach trees, soaring up into the smooth autumn sky, more blue than he'd ever seen it. "I'm not happy," he decided, as his eyes followed the trail of a lonely white cloud on the edge of the horizon. "I'm sad."

"Why? Are you jealous?"

"No."

"Are you angry that they've been keeping it a secret?"

"No. And they haven't been keeping it a secret, anyways, they've been trying to tell me for a while now and I haven't let them."

"Then why are you sad?"

Shikamaru tore his eyes from the cloud to look down at his shoes, almost in shame, if he was aware of such an emotion. "Because," he said shortly. "When I was a little boy, I didn't think my childhood would end. And now, it's ending."

The woman didn't sound compassionate, and from the corner of his eye she still had not moved, but as she spoke her voice was softer than before. "And Chouji and Ino being together is a sign of it ending, is it?"

"One of many signs," Shikamaru confirmed monotonously. "What with Asuma dying, that's the man I told you of earlier, and with my degree coming up…"

"Your degree?" The woman shifted, and he looked up to face her as she observed him with interest. "You're a student, then?"

"Yeah, I'm gonna graduate in less than a year," he said.

"What are you studying?"

"Anthropology."

"I love that subject."

Shikamaru blinked in surprise at the way she said that. Her eyes were as unreadable and frightening as ever. But the feeling in her voice, the simplicity and honesty of that sentence, was moving, and knocked him off guard.

"What's your name?" he asked after a few seconds ticked by.

Her face didn't move. All she said was: "It's cold. Let's get some coffee."

＊

"Neji, your uncle finally left…" Tenten said hesitantly through the closet door. About half an hour had passed, and still Neji had not left the closet. And even still, they could hear Lee's mutterings and clumsy footsteps pacing outside of the bedroom.

"Did you show him out?" Neji's voice sounded through the wood.

"Yes."

"Give him his coat and car keys?"

"Yes."

"Wish him a fine afternoon?"

"Yes."

"And what was Lee doing during this?"

"Attempting to eat one of the fake apples on the coffee table." Tenten listened as Neji heaved a sigh, and she said, "Your uncle didn't seem _too _displeased."

"He wouldn't be," Neji said, though he didn't sound reassured. "I explained to him many months ago about Lee's…_personality_."

Tenten smirked. "What disability did you make up?"

"I told him Lee has Turrets, ADHD _and_ Asperger's."

"How creative." Tenten rolled her eyes. "You seriously need to stop lying about Lee to people. Just because he's…_abnormal_, doesn't mean he has to have mental disabilities left and right. It's just who he is."

"Don't tell me you're actually content with '_who he is'_."

"No, but I'm not lying about it either." Tenten crossed her arms moodily. "You are such a coward, Neji."

"I'm not a coward, I'm a strategist."

"That's an excuse for being a coward," Tenten insisted.

"If I'm a coward then why are you dating me?"

Tenten leaned her forehead against the door, knocking her fist against it to make a dull _thunk_. She gazed ahead sullenly at the swooping browns and bronzes of the wood, and muttered, "Sometimes I don't even know. Maybe it's your legs."

Neji actually let out a small laugh at that, a sound that was very rare, but precious to Tenten's ears. "Are you sure it isn't my hair?" he teased her.

She let a smile curve her lips. "Maybe it's your butt. Or your absolutely obnoxious personality. I seem to be drawn to obnoxious personalities. Lee, you…"

"And in what universe do you put me on the same level as Lee?" Neji asked, obviously insulted. Tenten's smile widened at that.

"Well you're hiding in a closet, Neji, that kind of says a lot about you. Don't you think?"

"It says I'm a strategist."

"A _coward_," Tenten corrected him impatiently. "Now would you _please_—"

She was interrupted when suddenly the bedroom door came swooping open, and Lee, mad-faced and sobbing, came stumbling over to Tenten, holding up his cell phone. Tenten felt herself shrink back against the closet door, actually feeling frightened by Lee's trembling and tear-stained visage. But far from violent, he instead threw himself at her feet and, weeping words that were beyond inaudible, simply chucked the phone at Tenten.

Catching it, Tenten grimaced at the teardrops that were spreading out along the phone's surface, but she held it up to the light to see what he was trying to show her.

It was a text message, from Sakura. Of course in Lee's phone, the name read, "My Beautiful Blossom, the Wonderful and Magnificent, Sakura". It read:

_Where are you? Come back to my place, you didn't even give me the chance to finish what I was trying to say earlier. We really need to talk about this, Lee._

"What's going on? Did he come in here? Doesn't he know he's not allowed?"

"Shut up, Neji," Tenten muttered bitterly. She glanced down at Lee, sobbing into the carpet, and sighed, then crouched down to face him directly. "Lee," she said. He looked up at her, eyes and nose dribbling, and she pointed at him sharply. "I am going to ask you something, and you are going to answer. Capisch?"

Although it seemed to take some effort, Lee forced his head to nod up and down, his eyes wide.

"Okay," Tenten said, feeling relieved that she might actually be getting somewhere. "Now. _What_ did Sakura want to talk about?"

Sniffling, Lee managed to say in slurred words, "Sh-She…wanted to say…that she…was tired of us playing games in our relationship…and she said…she wants to draw the line…somewhere…" And then yet again he broke down and cried into the palms of his hands, his body, sprawled out on the floor, shaking with sobs: "_She wants to b-break up with me! I j-just know it!_"

Tenten groaned, sitting back on her heels and patting his trembling back awkwardly, setting the cell phone down on the floor beside her. "Lee, how can she break up with you when you're not even dating?" she asked exasperatedly.

"She never wants to see me again!"

"You don't know that," Tenten insisted.

"What's going on?"

"Shut _up_, Neji!" Tenten was distracted when her own cell phone began to vibrate. She groaned and pulled her wrist out of Lee's slobbering grasp to cross the room and snatch the phone up from her desk. The caller I.D. said it was Ino again. Tenten glowered, but answered:

"Hello?"

"_Tenten!" _Ino's voice sounded annoyed from the other line. _"Okay, so Chouji made me feel bad about hanging up on you earlier. So I called back, because of Chouji, to see if everything is alright over there, not that I care, only because Chouji does, and he's making me feel bad."_

Tenten pursed her lips. That was so very Ino of her. "How sweet," she muttered sarcastically. "No, it is _not_ alright over here. It's a bit of a disaster."

"_What's going on?"_

"Well…" Tenten was about to explain, but when she turned around to walk back to where Lee was, she lost her voice.

She had seen many things in her life that disgusted her. But vomit, a pile of dog poo, a dead frog in science class, and every horror movie she'd ever seen, had not prepared her for the terrible thing that lay in her line of vision.

A silence passed. She dared not speak. Neji was probably listening intently from the other side of the door, and Ino from the other side of the line on the phone. But no sound came from Tenten, for she feared if she opened her mouth, she might puke up her breakfast.

Finally, Neji said, sounding as if he didn't really want to know, "What's going on…?"

"Shut up, Neji…" Tenten managed to choke out.

"No, really, what happened?"

"_Tenten? What's going on?"_ Ino joined in.

Tenten tore her eyes away and turned around, then screeched over her shoulder, so angrily she thought she was going to be dizzy, "LEE, PUT YOUR GODDAMN CLOTHES BACK ON."

"What?!" came Neji's shocked yell from the other side of the closet. "Lee's _naked_?"

"But without Sakura, I am nothing," Tenten could hear Lee blubbering from close behind her. Her skin crawled as she heard him getting closer, and then her heart nearly stopped when suddenly, from right behind her neck, so close she could almost feel his breath, he crooned:

"_Tenten. Comfort me._"

Tenten let out a horrified scream and she flung herself away from him, rounding the desk to use it as a barricade between them and shouting, "Get the _hell_ out of here!"

"What's going on? What happened?"

"Neji, what kind of man _are_ you?! Another man is naked around your girlfriend!"

"Lee's my friend!" Neji defended himself, although shakily. "I trust him!"

"He asked me to '_comfort him_'!"

There was a silence, only filled with Lee's sobs as he crouched down and hugged his drunken, naked body, and then Neji said, "Then I must kill him."

Tenten blinked in surprise and watched the closet door hopefully, then:

"After I get out of the closet."

Tenten groaned aloud, and heard Ino's voice calling from the cell phone in her hand, _"Tenten?"_

She held the phone up to her ear, and Ino asked uncertainly, _"What's happening?"_

"Lee's naked and Neji won't come out of the closet."

A few seconds ticked by, and then, Tenten's own words sank into her. She coughed and said weakly, "No, wait, I just realized what that sounded like…"

But Ino was not amused. _"Okay, that's all I've got in me," _she was saying from the phone. _"I did not sign up for this. Oh shut up, Chouji, I am not a mediator, I don't have time to help Tenten and her gay boyfriend and her naked alcoholic friend."_

"No, Neji's not gay, he's literally—"

"_Yet again, Tenten: Good luck, goodbye."_

As Ino hung up, and Lee sobbed, and Neji speculated the situation in silence from the other side of the closet, Tenten vowed to kill at least one of the people she'd spoken to today.

＊

After driving the small distance downtown and walking there, Shikamaru and the blonde woman arrived at a small hideaway bakery. It was nestled between a Thai food restaurant and a salon, its shabby yellow awning and chipped bricks concealed well by the smooth surrounding buildings that seemed to tower over it. Upon entering they were greeted by the only one working there besides two cooks and another waitress, a skinny and pale young man named Sai.

Sai seemed to know the woman as a regular and, after a warm greeting, he shuffled them eagerly past rows of tiny iron tables filled with raucously laughing groups of young friends and couples, and over to a two-person window seat. The iron table and pair of tall, cushioned chairs were shoved neatly among silky crimson curtains that clashed friendlily among the orange and gold decorations that were still up past late November. The blonde ordered them each the specialty of the day, which was a cappuccino with spiced rum, and they were awaiting their order now.

"So, where did you find this place?" Shikamaru asked, looking around at the red and yellow paintings that were sprawled among the walls, and paying attention to the soft jazz music drifting from hidden speakers. "I've never heard of it before. Never really noticed it either, and I'm always downtown these days."

"Not a lot of people know of this place," the woman said with a shrug, toying with her glass of water opposite Shikamaru's, watching the way the sunlight floating in through the window was making the glass sparkle. "But those who do are usually regulars. It's family-run, and it's really cute. I found it because it has a very hipster-like environment, so my friends bring me here often. I'm quite welcome around hipsters."

"Being a photographer," Shikamaru observed.

He saw that glint of humor in her eyes again, and she agreed, amused, "Being a photographer, yes." They both paused to acknowledge Sai as he brought them back their drinks, and thanked him in turn. As he left, she faced Shikamaru and nodded at his coffee, ordering him shamelessly, "Try it."

He raised a brow at her casual request, but obeyed, sipping the coffee from the clay mug, blowing on it first so as not to scald his mouth. As he swallowed, he felt the pleasant burn of the rum and apple spices warming his throat, and the nip of cinnamon lingering on his tongue. He nodded slowly, saying with a small, impressed laugh, "I can see why you come here so often."

She nodded and sipped her own coffee, saying as she swallowed, "Nice, isn't it?"

Shikamaru couldn't help but watch her lips as she spoke, dark red and full, but not pouty like most girls' lips. Round, and soft-looking. But at the same moment in which he became mesmerized by them, his focus was torn away by a sharp pain that ran through his arm. He winced and glanced down at his wound, grimacing at the blood that still came from his skin. He grabbed a paper napkin from the table and wet it with some condensation from his glass, before holding it to his arm.

The woman watched him do this. "You really should put something on that, it'll get infected."

"It's fine." To distract himself from the pain, he looked back to her lips and asked her, "So how do you make a living as an artist?"

She shifted in her seat, still glancing at his arm, but answered: "I actually sell to places like this. There's a high demand in salons and restaurants and attractions downtown for art to put on their bare walls. I've actually sold to this very place, one of my pictures near the front door, you'll see it again when we leave. I've sold to the French restaurant on Main Street, to the book store a block over from here, and a couple other places. I also do commissions, for wealthy people who want something to hang above their couches, things like that. They all pay in high price, and it's usually enough to get my living."

"It must be a struggle though," Shikamaru observed.

"_Life_ is a struggle," she confirmed. "It's supposed to be. You, as an anthropologist, should be aware of this." He nodded slowly, and she continued: "What made you decide to study the subject?"

He frowned, contemplating his answer. "Well, at first I just thought it would be an easy thing to do. I already know I'm going to be a teacher, I have all the credits and licenses I need for that. So I figured, well, why not?"

"But then?" she coaxed him.

He nodded his head to the side. "But then…I started to like the _sound_ of it. Anthropology, the study of humans…I thought, well, this is really interesting. And then…" He smirked a bit. "I just fell in love, I guess."

"It's that easy," the woman said.

"That easy," he agreed. "So, you said before that you love anthropology. Why's that? Do you have a favorite part of it?"

She shrugged. "I studied it in college. And, like you, I fell in love. Not to the point where I wanted to make a living of it, I've always known I want to be a photographer. But I _do_ have a favorite part of it, and it's the theory of souls."

Shikamaru raised a brow. "But…anthropologists generally don't _believe _in souls," he said.

"Exactly," she continued. "That's why I like anthropology. It requires us to see a sort of specialty in humans that doesn't require magic, or spirits, or other powers. It shows us that what's really there, the real _picture_, is just _us_." She gestured at him, and said before taking a sip of her coffee, "What do _you_ think of souls, then? Do you believe in them?"

"No," Shikamaru answered, shaking his head. "I believe in what you just said; us. I like that." He smiled a bit, and admitted: "I think humans are more beautiful than any story or picture ever made."

And as soon as he finished his sentence, he saw her smile, and for a moment, for a fleeting moment that made the universe hurl and the moon stretch and his skin burn hot and cold at the same time, the world stopped turning.

Her eyes closed, and her lips stretched, and her teeth gleamed in a terrifying, gorgeous grin that glowed brighter than the afternoon sun, that shone more stunning than the pure, pure blue of the smooth autumn sky.

When the world started moving again, when the universe regained its balanced, when the sun and moon retained their shape, and his skin felt less numb and less alive, he could barely speak, but he managed to say, in a voice so gentle it nearly shocked him, "What's your name?"

She broke out of her smile, and shrugged at him. "Ask me another question, that one's boring."

"Okay. Why did you choose that particular spot to take a picture?"

She was staring at him, her blue eyes searching his mysteriously. Finally she cracked a slightly smaller grin, but one that made his heart slam against his chest nonetheless, and she said, "Why don't I show you?"

＊

It took fifteen minutes to get Sakura to answer her phone.

During those minutes, Tenten somehow, with the help of the frustrated Neji yelling through the closet door, managed to convince Lee to put his clothes back on, shielding her eyes from him the entire time. Still feeling nauseous from such an ordeal, she shoved his stumbling, drunken body into her and Neji's bed, promising herself to change the sheets later, maybe even burn them, and then continued to dial Sakura's number feverishly while Lee snored away into her pillows, to Neji's spoken disgust, knowing she didn't have much time before he awoke again.

Finally, right as she was about to give up trying, Sakura answered the phone breathlessly to Tenten's immense relief.

"_Hello? Tenten? I'm so sorry!"_

"Sakura!" Tenten cried into the phone, wearily wiping a bead of sweat off her brow and leaning against the closet door where Neji was. "I've been trying to reach you forever!"

"_I know, I'm so sorry, my line was busy! I was first trying to text Lee, but he isn't answering, and then I got a call from Ino; she told me everything! Is Lee really drunk, and is he really naked?! I just can't believe it!"_

Tenten swallowed, recognizing the signs of how upset Sakura sounded from the strain in her voice. "Um…" She decided she'd rather pretend it didn't happen, and said slowly, "No, actually, he's not naked. I never said he was naked, I said he was…_native_."

"…_He's what…?"_

"Yeah, he _is_ drunk, but he's not _naked_. I told Ino he's _native_, he's doing a…native _dance_ around the living room…Like a…native…!"

For a while she was silent, then Sakura said, _"Tenten you're a terrible liar."_

Tenten groaned. "I know, I know. Yes, he was naked, but he has his clothes on now, I swear. He just gets crazy when he's drunk, you know…"

"_Oh, I know, I know. I'm so sorry, Tenten, this is all my fault! I was trying to talk to him to morning about something, and he just ran off. He took it completely the wrong way!"_

"Yeah, you're telling me," Tenten grumbled. "He keeps crying about how he thinks you don't want to see him anymore."

"_What?"_ Sakura sounded shocked on the other end of the phone. _"What are you talking about? Of course I want to see him. I was just trying to tell him that I think it's about time we have an actual relationship!"_

Tenten blinked in surprise. Going over the words in her head, to make sure they were actually real, she said slowly, "You…want to have an actual relationship…with _Lee_?"

"Who are you talking to? What's happening?"

"Shut up, Neji."

"_Oh, is Neji there?"_

"Yeah, but that's not the point, Sakura. Are you telling me, you want to have a _relationship_…? With…_Lee_…?"

Sakura sounded sheepish and embarrassed, but even so, she bravely spoke, with clarity: _"Y-Yes…I have come to the conclusion that Lee is really the best person for me…I've spent my life making a lot of mistakes, but he was the only one that was ever truly there for me, to help me through the struggle. And after seeing how happy Ino is with Chouji, after seeing how much he cares about her and how he really makes her feel special, I…I want to feel like that…You know what I mean, right? Neji is just like that for you, isn't he?"_

Tenten, although feeling happy for Sakura, at the same time began to sense a bit of dejectedness on her part. "Yeah…" she said as kindly as she could. But inside, she knew she was lying.

And upon realizing that, for the first time since she'd been dating Neji, she felt crushed.

"Uh, Sakura…I think Lee accidentally turned the garbage disposal on, I have to go…"

"_Oh…" _Sakura sounded disappointed, but added quickly, _"Just…Please, when Lee sobers up, will you please bring him to his senses for me? You're his best friend, you can probably tell him better than me."_

"I'll tell him," Tenten promised. After saying their goodbyes, Tenten hung up the phone and sat back against the door, sliding down it 'till her butt hit the carpet.

"What happened? Who was that on the phone?" Neji asked.

"Shut up, Neji," Tenten said quietly, and this time her voice didn't sound angry. It was sad.

Neji seemed to recognize this, because he asked immediately, "What's the matter?"

Tenten watched the sleeping Lee on the bed, chest heaving up and down, and she sighed. Might as well be honest. There wasn't going to be any other chance. "I'm just thinking…" she said slowly. "…that Lee would be a better boyfriend than you."

It didn't even take two seconds. The door slammed open, smacking Tenten hard in the head, and Neji tumbled out of the closet in a furious mess. Tenten cried out in pain, holding onto her head, and gaped at him as he twisted around, and looked at her, eyes wild and wide.

"Oh," he said simply. "Sorry, I didn't mean to hit you."

"You complete idiot!" she snapped, rubbing her head furiously and jumping to her feet. He straightened up as well, facing her, an incredulous look on his face. She glared at that. "What's with that expression? _You_ just smacked _me_ in the head with a door, _I_ should be the one that's wearing that face!"

"Well you just implied you'd rather date Lee than me!" Neji cried. Tenten noticed he was holding his hand inside his pocket for some reason, but didn't care about that and just sneered up at him in anger.

"Well it's true!" she yelled. "He would be a better boyfriend!" She gestured to his form, still snoozing on the bed in the middle of all these bangs and yells, and said, "Look at all the misery he went through, just from a little misunderstanding between him and Sakura! He is beating himself up this much, and they're not even _dating_ yet!"

"He's a freak!" Neji said, appalled. "He's a freak of nature, and you know that!"

"And that freak of nature is going to make Sakura the happiest woman in the world!" Tenten insisted. "Just like Chouji is making Ino! And I look at those two women, and I think; Why can't _I_ be that happy? Why can't _I _be that loved! I'll tell you why!" She pointed her finger at Neji, and he blinked at it while she yelled, "Because _you_ are a terrible boyfriend!"

He stared at her, hand still in his pocket, looking confused, and she rolled her eyes. "Oh come on!" she cried. "You seriously don't see why you're a bad boyfriend? You hid in the closet, making _me_ deal with all that crap! You hid in the closet even when your best friend is asking your girlfriend to _'comfort him_'! You hid in the closet when _I _was upset! And you only come out to yell at me because I insulted you?"

"That's not why I came out!" he yelled right back at her, face red in anger. "I came out because I found this!"

And he pulled from his pocket something small and black and made of velvet.

Tenten blinked at it, losing grip of her fury for surprise and confusion. "…What's that…?" she asked dumbly as he held it out in his palm. His eyes were searching hers wildly, a look of frustration and rage floating in his gaze. Then he blew a strand of hair out of his face and heaved a rigid sigh. "Well…Well I might as well…" he muttered, suddenly looking anywhere but at her. "I just might as well, right? There's no other time…Even if there is…It doesn't matter…"

Tenten suddenly felt her body freeze as he got to his knee. She gazed down at him, alarmed, recognizing what was happening, but not realizing it. He opened the small velvet case, to show to her the beautiful, sparkling diamond ring inside, glinting in the autumn sunlight.

"Tenten…" The way he said her name made her heart hurt. "If you want me to make you happy, then this is how I can promise to do that…" His eyes met hers yet again, and this time they were deep, and smooth. "I wasn't hiding to avoid Lee, or my uncle, or your sadness or your troubles. I was avoiding this. Like I always do. I was strategizing, like I always do, because I'm a coward, like I always have been." He smiled a bit, making her blood run cold and hot, and he murmured, "But if you take me as I am, then I swear I'll be a better man for you. I'll be a freak like Lee if you want, I'll love you forever, and so strongly that I'll make myself miserable over you." He grabbed her hand.

"Will you marry—"

"Shut up, Neji." She reached down and pressed her lips to his in a strong, soft kiss that nearly took the breath away from the both of them. Parting briefly to smile at him she shook the tear from her eye and murmured with a laugh, "You know the answer, so shut up."

＊

Shikamaru founding himself crouching on the sidewalk next to the blonde woman nearly fifteen minutes later, right outside of his apartment window, looking down at something very familiar.

Close to where he'd fallen, two pictures were there, carved into the cement, sitting next to each other like a childish code layout. The first was a squiggly line that wrapped around itself to form a lopsided shape. The next was a straight line with four circles sprouting from the sides of it. They were poorly drawn, and sloppy. And in the shadows cast by Shikamaru and woman, they were nothing special.

"So this is what you were going to photograph?" Shikamaru asked after a while. The woman nodded, her eyes gazing straight down at the picture, unreadable but focused. Shikamaru tried to stay calm, but there was an emotion building in his blood that he couldn't identify, and the pain in his arm was beginning to become really annoying. "What do you see in this?" Shikamaru asked, not bothering to mask his frustration.

The woman pursed her lips in concentration, still looking at the picture. The sunlight flooding through the peach tress cast golden flares through her hair, making it look like it was shining, like fire, sending orbs of red light sparkling in her eyes. "I see…" she began, in her low voice, rumbling like a waterfall, "…childhood. Or, the tragic and beautiful loss of it." Shikamaru couldn't tear his gaze away from her as she spoke softly, like she was sharing with him a dark and exciting secret:

"I see the disappearance of innocence, and its replacement with something else. Whether that be wisdom or guilt, I'm not sure yet. But I see memories, of days spent in the sun." Her eyes traveled upwards, to drift slowly along the street, the crimson bricks, the empty road, the dying grass and the orange of the trees. "I see an escape," she continued, "to the shade of sunflowers in the summer, and the freedom of the end of school days in the autumn, among the pumpkins and gourds and dead leaves. The burn of cinnamon in the air, the spices and sweet smells."

She seemed to notice his wonder, for she turned to him and shrugged a bit, a little amused at the look in his eyes. "I sometimes think I should be a poet instead of a photographer," she admitted. "But an artist is an artist, through and through..." She turned back to the picture on the ground, as if busy with her homework, and he couldn't hold it in anymore:

"I made that."

She blinked up at him in surprise. He nodded, trying to get her to see his honesty. "I did," he insisted. "I drew it." He pointed to the squiggly shape and said, "That's a cloud…" then to the straight lines with circles and said, "…and that's a butterfly. I drew the cloud, Chouji drew the butterfly."

Her eyes widened, and she nodded with understanding. Shikamaru gestured over their shoulders back up at his apartment. "I've lived there all my life," he said. "Before I bought it off of them, my parents owned it. Chouji lived three doors over, and Ino lived a block up." He turned back to the pictures on the ground. "This was our spot," he said. "Chouji's and mine. We came here every day, just to relax, to eat chips and look up at the clouds. Sometimes we'd invite these two other guys, Naruto and Kiba, but really, it was ours. Even when they were replacing the sidewalk, we carved these pictures into the wet cement, just to prove it. It's been like a promise, our entire lives.

"Then Ino came along. She was annoying at first. The day she joined us it was because we put ink in her hair, because we hated her. We thought it was funny. But then she kept coming, kept persisting, and finally, Chouji made it clear that she was part of us now. This thing, whatever it is. She was in. And I figured, what the hell, I'll just have to make her part of the plan.

"But the more she came in, the more the plan fell to shit. Even though Chouji and I stuck to our childhood as much as possible. We even bought that apartment, like we said we would. And we even got the jobs we always said we would; I'm gonna be a teacher, Chouji's gonna open a restaurant…We always said we'd do that…

"But still, nothing's like I planned it. And Chouji doesn't even seem to care." Shikamaru stuffed the frustration down his throat and put a hand to his wound. "This life isn't what I thought it was," he said, ignoring the burning stare of the woman's eyes. "In a world where Asuma can die, and Chouji and Ino of all people can get together, and I can fall out of a window and meet you…" His voice faded and he turned to her. His eyes searched hers, and he couldn't read them. "There is no plan," he said.

And she said:

"There's only us."

His frustration, which had been slowly bubbling to the surface, was soothed instantly as she continued in a soft voice, "And that's the most beautiful story or picture there's ever been."

And she smiled, and he relaxed. The pain in his arm went away, his sinking heart rose again. He smiled, too, even though before he'd felt like crying, and he said almost happily, "Your smile is beautiful."

Her eyes opened again, and she raised a brow, and he immediately felt his cheeks turn red, realizing what he'd said. He coughed, but couldn't help himself, and added, awkwardly, almost not wanting to say it, "Y…_You're_ beautiful…"

She smiled again, but to laugh, and then she stood up. He pressed his hands into his knees, forcing himself to stand as well, facing her, embarrassed. She was stretching, and then she turned to look up at him, and placed her hands on her hips. "As an anthropologist," she said suddenly, "what is your view on death?"

"Death?" He scratched the back of his neck. "Well, when you die, you stop. Everything you've ever been, that you ever were, that you ever could have been, stops. Your brain dies, you have no consciousness, and everything is gone. And your body decays, and…"

"…and," she continued for him, " something else is created from your body. You'll become the soil, a part of the earth, and from then on, over the millions of years, you will be continuously recycled, sent all over the world, in all sorts of forms." Shikamaru nodded slowly, confused by her expectant stare. She shook her head impatiently, trying to get him to understand: "I'm saying that when one thing dies, another thing is born from it. Yes, you live in a world without a plan. And you live in a world where someday, those pictures on the sidewalk there will be replaced by more cement, and flowers will grow over Asuma's grave, and you'll move out of that apartment into a beautiful new home, and Chouji will forget about you to move on with Ino, so that you can forget about him and move on with someone else. That is the picture. That is life."

Shikamaru tried to stare at her through the sunlight that gleamed in his eyes. "Then…" he said slowly, feeling a strange floating feeling in his skin. "…I suppose I'll have to get a head start on that."

"As an anthropologist," the woman said with a smirk, "it's your duty." She dusted her knees off, looking around. "Well, I've done what I said I would do," she decided aloud, more to herself than to him. "We've talked. And I should go make plans to order a new camera."

"Yeah…" Shikamaru said slowly, rubbing the back of his head, feeling guilty. "That's probably a—"

His sentence never finished, because his lips were interrupted by hers.

In all his life, he'd never been kissed like that. He felt his stomach turn circles, and his hands and mouth moved on their own to caress her, feel her, as much as he could, pulling her close to press her body against his as tightly as he would allow himself.

But it only lasted a few seconds, so short and so tender he almost was disappointed as she parted from him, for want of more, more, more…

She stepped back, leaving him with a breathless longing, and said, biting her bottom lip to keep herself from grinning, "I'll see you next Wednesday."

He blinked, confused. "N…Next Wednesday?"

Walking backwards and collecting her coat to herself, she shrugged. "For our next date. I'll meet you right here, at noon exactly, next Wednesday."

And she was walking away, leaving him…

He cleared his throat, and took a step forward, saying loudly after her, "My name's Shikamaru."

She stopped, to look over her shoulder. "What's yours?" he asked, as calmly as he could.

She gazed at him for a few moments, before she said, her eyes soft and sparkling: "Temari."

He wanted to say it aloud. The name felt good in his mouth as his tongue formed the first letters. But he cleared his mind and said breathlessly, "Next Wednesday, then…"

She smiled, and his heart twisted around itself. "Next Wednesday."

＊

When she'd first seen him, Temari had thought he was an angel falling from the sky.

She didn't believe in angels. Only as a child he had. So she felt very much like she'd gone back in time, seeing this strange man with smoldering eyes gazing up at her in confusion. She felt almost as childish as he looked.

Then, when she reminded herself there was no such thing as an angel, she was even more overcome with wonder by this man. He was so human, and yet so strangely miraculous. Like a baby, he didn't even know how to take care of a wound.

She contemplated the irony of this, as she walked away from him towards her car. Even days later, it was still affecting her. The next Tuesday, the day before she was supposed to see him again, as she drove downtown, and as she walked down the sidewalk, on her way to a restaurant to meet a couple friends she'd promised she'd visit for dinner, she couldn't get him out of her mind. That spontaneous kiss she'd given him still lingered on her lips.

The sun was setting, sending peach and blueberry puffs of clouds sprawling across the sky. Blinking in the bright, hard sunlight, she turned her head, and looked into the window of one of the restaurants she was passing.

And as soon as she did so, she stumbled to a halt in surprise.

He was there. Shikamaru, standing at a table. He looked cheerful, happier than he'd been the day she met him. He was with eight other people, three couples and two young men who seemed very rowdy. The center of attention was one couple, and judging by the ring on on the brunette woman's left hand that she was constantly showing off in the light, they were recently engaged.

Shikamaru wasn't watching them, though. He kept glancing fondly at the couple to his left. A beautiful young woman with long, glossy blond hair was being held gently around the hip by a tall and slightly overweight man. This large man's hand was so big in comparison to this woman's tiny waist, but the way she smiled at him every couple seconds, the way that he almost cradled her small body against his, was so sweet that Temari almost felt the warmth of their happiness.

And in the next second her heart thudded when Shikamaru suddenly caught her gaze. The two stared at each other through the glass of the window in surprise. Maybe Shikamaru had also thought, along with Temari, that their meeting had been nothing but a good dream, and this was a solid reminder of how real it actually was.

But Shikamaru's lips curved up in a smile, after a while. A smile that warmed her heart. A childish smile, like one of a little boy who'd heard a good joke. His smoky eyes were gentle, and he gave her a small, stupid wave that made her laugh at the churlishness of it. And she smiled back at him, returned his idiotic wave, and then went on her way.

She had been doing some running, some escaping, of her own. Maybe she, too, could stop. Everyone had to eventually, after all, she reminded herself. Even if it was painful. Like staring directly into the sun. But winter was coming, and she knew as well as anyone:

She, too, needed someone to warm her up.

**The End – Have Happy, Warm Holidays This Year**

Dedicated to bright-rebellious; Thank you for all your words and all your thoughts. :)


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